RSSArchive for March, 2006
Death in the Afternoon
Okay, time to start cranking up the World Cup output, updating the big picture with quick takes on all things mundial. This week:
Teen titan Cesc
1. Why I’m suddenly bullish on Spain – not to win, but perhaps to make the final four. The magic of Cesc Fabregas, and the selection dilemma he represents. Personally, [...]
Abu Mazen Offers a Punchline
I’d never figured Mahmoud Abbas for Rupert Pupkin, but you’ve got to admire the guy’s material — and his exquisite comic timing. Latest example: The punchline he offered after Hamas presented him with its cabinet: “Yes, but Hamas has failed to acknowledge the primacy of the PLO, which is the sole legitimate representative of the [...]
Iraq is the 51st State
1. It’s Official: Iraq is the 51st State
Amid all the Bush dissembling that marked the third anniversary of his Iraq invasion, it might be easy to forget that we got into this mess because the Democrats and the media were not prepared to challenge the Big Lie used to justify it. It was plain as [...]
More Pro-Israel Than the Israelis
The news that Israeli officials are alarmed that the Israel lobby in the U.S. is going overboard in its response to the Hamas victory should come as no surprise. Ever since I first arrived here, I’ve been struck by the extent to which the public organizations of the U.S. Jewish community are way, way [...]
A Self-Defeating Iran Strategy
The boundaries between the U.S. and Israeli flags literally blur in the backdrop as Cheney threatens Iran from the podium of the America Israel Political Action Committe
Last September, I noted that “the Bush administration appears not to have gamed the outcome of its effort to challenge Tehran’s nuclear program at the UN Security Council” [...]
Avian Flu is Bad for You…
Five reasons you should buy Karl Taro Greenfeld’s new book , “The China Syndrome” — besides the fact that it’s a gripping chronicle of China’s handling of the SARS outbreak in 2003 is a timely and frightening read as the world watches the spread of Avian Flu.
1) Karl provided the looping cross from out on [...]
Will Arab-Baiting Get Dems Re-elected?
“We now smell the scent of victory.” That was how Charles Schumer, the demagogic Senator from New York responded to the announcement that Dubai Ports World, the international shipping company that had bought the British firm P&O and thereby acquired the management contracts on six U.S. ports, would divest P&O’s U.S. holdings (which make [...]
Bite-Size Prophecies on CNN
Appropos recent developments on the Palestinian front, I dug up this transcript of June 2002 interview I did on CNN before a Sharon-Bush summit. Extract:
LIN: But Tony, do you see agreement between President Bush and Yasser Arafat that both parties are making an aggressive attempt to minimize Yasser Arafat?
KARON: It has been suggested that [...]
The Latest
Guest Columns
How I Overcame My Jewish-Evangelical Upbringing and Learned to Love Christmas, Anyway
Guest Column: Gavin Evans Back in the day, when Gavin and I were young activists trying to change the world, the doorbell rang at our Observatory student house. I opened it to see a tall and handsome man in the silky purple shirt and dog collar of an Anglican Bishop. "You must be Tony," said Bis...Featured Analysis
Does Obama Have a Mideast Plan B?
It's hardly surprising that President Barack Obama chose to schedule a White House visit by Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the dead of night on Monday, because right now Obama has little to show for his 10-month effort to revive a Middle East peace process. The Israeli leader's refu...Unholy War
Who Lost Fatah?
‘Who lost China?” was the battle cry of a witch-hunt conducted in the US State Department following the 1949 victory of Mao Zedong’s communists. The department’s “China hands”, critics charged, had been woefully ignorant of the dynamics at work on the ground in China after the Second W...A Skeptical Read
More Iran Hysteria from the NY Times
The surest sign that another neocon bill of goods is being hawked in respect of the Iran "nuclear peril" is the revival of Rumsfeld-esque "unknowable unknowns", a la Iraq WMD panic circa late 2002. In the real world, of course, solid progress is being made towards a plausible diplomatic deal to ...99c Blogging
The 'Metrics' of Obama's Vietnam
Why is the Administration conducting a "test run" for its metrics of success in Afghanistan? Because the metrics used will be those that provide the desired verdictHear! Hear!
Helena Cobban Explains FatahIf I Was a Blogger...
More Dennis Ross Dissembling
Obama's Iran point man can't seem to get his head around the reasons for Israeli emigrationA Wondering Jew
Obama, Foxman and Israel's Purpose
Having spent decades drumming home the idea that Israel is rooted squarely in the Holocaust experience, and should be viewed by the world as the state of the survivors, Israelis and some of their most fervent backers in the U.S. are suddenly insisting that this is a misleading, even hostile idea.Glancing Headers
The Shebab, the Shahids and the Champion's League Final
The Shebab gunman on the left appears to be a Gunner, i.e. an Arsenal fan... In honor of today's Champion's League final, I republish my op ed that ran in the National a year ago. What was most fascinating about the photograph of the Somali gunman who was part of the crowd dragging the body...Annals of Globalization
The Shebab, the Shahids and the Champion's League Final
The Shebab gunman on the left appears to be a Gunner, i.e. an Arsenal fan... In honor of today's Champion's League final, I republish my op ed that ran in the National a year ago. What was most fascinating about the photograph of the Somali gunman who was part of the crowd dragging the body...The Whole World's Africa
Congo's Not Africa's WWI, It's Worse Than That
If there is a European analogy to be applied in the Congo, it would be the brutal Thirty Year War in Germany that ended in 1648Shameless Cronyism
Embedded with the Jihadis
My crazy friend Nir Rosen goes on embed with the Taliban, and finds out just why the U.S. can't win in AfghanistanRebellion Into Money
Why Joe Strummer Was a Socialist
Hint: It had nothing to do with bailing out banksCould Die Laughing
Whatever Became of that Nice Mr. Blair...
The problem with a global conversation between Muslims and Christians refereed by Tony Blair? Two words: Tony Blair.The 51st State
A Teachable Moment in Basra
It should come as no surprise that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's disastrous offensive against the Mahdi Army of Moqtada Sadr in Basra has had the exact opposite effect of that intended -- strengthening rather than weakening Sadr, and making clear that he, and the Iranians, have far greater in...Futures Market
Will Russia Partition Kosovo?
Why my tea-leaf reading suggests that Moscow has a nasty surprise in store for Washington in the BalkansCuisine
Yummy yummy Umami
Why a leftover lamb bone turned a bean stew into an ecstatic eventHousekeeping
'Lost' Entries on Rootless Cosmopolitan
Previous entries that now register as "not available" are ones that got left behind in a server migration. We're working on retrieving themNew York Moments
The Debka Made ‘Em Do ItFrom Tony's Archive
A Playground Lesson for Bush
How a spontaneous alliance of jocks, do-gooders and lesser bullies against the biggest bully at the school changed the balance of power at Milnerton Primary
